Opposition leader says Netanyahu dragging Israel into ‘endless war’
Labor Party leader Yair Golan has called Netanyahu’s ruling coalition a “zero government” that is dragging the country to an “endless war”.
Earlier today, a ballistic missile from Yemen fired by the Houthis landed near Ben Gurion international airport in Tel Aviv.
In a statement on X, Golan called on the Israelis to stage daily protests against the government.
“Only continuous popular pressure will bring down this government,” he added.
Golan said Sunday’s missile attack was a “reminder of the right-wing government’s ongoing failure”.
“Instead of closing battlefronts, this zero government is pulling us into endless war, eternal internal conflict and an abyss.”
Netanyahu promises strong response to Houthi attack
As we’ve been reporting, the Houthi group said it carried out a “military operation targeting a military target” in Jaffa, using “a new hypersonic ballistic missile that succeeded in reaching its target”.
At a weekly cabinet meeting earlier today, PM Netanyahu said “we are exacting a heavy price for any attempt to harm us”.
He added that the current situation in northern Israel, along the border with Lebanon, “will not continue” and that he was determined to do everything possible to return northern evacuees to their homes.
Israel ‘will not enjoy security’ unless it ends its war in Gaza
Hamas says Israel “will not enjoy security” unless it ends its war in Gaza while praising the Houthis for their missile attack on central Israel earlier today.
A statement by Hamas said it considers the missile attack a “natural response to the Zionist entity’s aggression against our Palestinian people”.
“We affirm that the Zionist enemy will not enjoy security unless it ceases its brutal aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip,” the group said in the statement.
Hamas official says Palestinians must ‘jointly’ lead post-war Gaza
Osama Hamdan has said that the group wants “joint Palestinian rule” in Gaza once Israel’s war on the besieged territory ends.
“Clearly we said that the next day must be Palestinian … the day after the battle is a Palestinian day,” the senior Hamas official told AFP during an interview in Istanbul.
But Hamdan said the US was not doing enough to force concessions from Israel that could lead to a truce in the war.
“The American administration does not exert sufficient or appropriate pressure on the Israeli side,” he told the news agency. “Rather it is trying to justify the Israeli side’s evasion of any commitment.
The senior Hamas official has said the group has ample resources to continue fighting Israel despite losses sustained over more than 11 months of war on Gaza.
“The resistance has a high ability to continue,” Hamdan told AFP during an interview in Istanbul. “There were martyrs and there were sacrifices … but in return there was an accumulation of experiences and the recruitment of new generations into the resistance.”
Hamdan also said that a missile attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels targeting central Israel showed the limits of Israel’s ability to defend itself.
“It is a message to the entire region that Israel is not an immune entity,” he told the news agency. “Even Israeli capabilities have limits, and the possibility of developing resistance action against the Zionist entity is a serious and real possibility, not a fantasy.”
